Reaching For The Stars?

June 10, 1986|The Morning Call

To the Editor:

I admire and envy the people who attended the Bethlehem School Board meeting on May 29. I admire them for their concern about their children's education, and envy them having the time and apparently the resources to urge the board to maintain all-day kindergarten and middle school "curriculum supervisors," despite the millage increase, and urging it even higher.

The Morning Call article quoted an attorney, two doctors (letter or medical kind was not specified) and a principal who is also a city council member. The attorney threatened the tenure of the board members if they refused to support the views of those in attendence, despite having no data to suggest that he spoke for the majority of taxpayers. The principal said he once served a dual principalship, and knows he wasn't as effective. There may be some faculties who will tell you that half a principalship is easily enough. The doctors said they had no qualms about the millage increase, and one said, "Let us reach for the stars." Doctors, medical or letter kind, can afford to say things like that. In an attempt to deflect the protests of the elderly and those on fixed incomes, one speaker declared that property values would go down if the system lost the contested services. In all of this, it is noteworthy that, according to your article, no one suggested getting input from the people on the front line: the teachers.

Besides attorneys, doctors and principals, there are other taxpayers who are laid off, struggling, infirm or single and without children. They weren't at the meeting, but John Spirk's hunch may be correct. There just might be a "silent majority" of taxpayers who believe that you can still get a decent educational vehicle without so many options.